28th June 2019

To celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of Saint Christina’s School, 1949 – 2019, we wanted to do something really special that all the children would remember for a very long time. We also wanted a project that would inspire the children to marvel at the wonder and power of science as well as understand the value of perseverance and team work.

We decided that sending a package containing important items for our school into space and taking a photo of a special Saint Christina’s image against the backdrop of the curvature of the earth would fit this bill nicely.

The Year 6 girls went to work learning all about high altitude ballooning; figuring out how it was possible to fill a latex balloon with helium or hydrogen, carry a polystyrene payload containing cameras and GPS tracking equipment to an altitude of 30,000 metres (after checking it was OK by the CAA) where it would eventually explode due to the decrease in pressure and then and fall back down to earth on a parachute and hopefully be retrieved!

We got in touch with a team of experts in Sheffield, who liked the sound of our mission and were excited to help us achieve our goal...